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Wednesday, 12 April 2017

QUARTERLY UPDATE BLOG POST : WORKSHOP UPDATE AND ZACCARIA CABARET

Hello people who read my blog about what I get up to when I have time for projects. It's been a while, as I always write in these blog posts haha. I have been getting up to things but none that are really techy that I can remember.

The main thing I've been getting up to is enjoying spending time with my family and getting the workshop in the garden up to speed so I can get back to working on my scratch built bar top arcade machine.

And because Spring time is here the list of DIY jobs is starting to get longer and longer, life hey! :-P

So, I finished up the inside of my small garden workshop, building my work bench, shelves and bandsaw table / stand etc. Now I have a work space that's dry and I can leave my tools out (although I pretty much always put them away) I can have bit and bob away at the bar top arcade cab whenever I get a spare hour here or there.

I'm really proud of the setup and how much I can actually do in a small shed like it is. When its been raining or dark outside I can still cut down fairly large sheets of wood (not being too daft) in there with some creative placements of tools and me.

I think I have all the tools I need to get my arcade project finished, I just have to learn how to use them! haha. I am learning new and better ways to do things everytime I make a little bit more progress. So much so that I will be re-doing one of the panels I made last year now I know a better way of cutting and mounting it.

Once I have the monitor mounting sorted how I want I think I will post some photos of my bar top cabinet. I get a more and more stoked out with how its looking everytime I get a bit of work done on it.

So enough of workshop-chat. Onto my new arcade cabinet...well, arcade cabinet project! My uncle who I hadn't seen in a long time was having to clear out the storage area he'd rented for years and years. I think he's realised he won't be doing anything with his stored stuff so has been clearing it out. Anyway, he was working his way through and found an arcade cabinet and knowing how much I'm into arcade stuff asked me if I would like it. And I said Hell Yeah!

I went out to see it and move it to my wife's family farm so I can store it hopefully safe and sound. When I got there I was pleased to see that it's a small cabinet so easier to move than my re-wired / resurrected full size woody cabinet.

A little look through the machine when I got it back I was a little disappointed to see that the chassis for the monitor was missing. :-( And when I mentioned it to my uncle he couldn't remember why it would be missing, more than likely years and years back when it was in his shop it would have been sent off for repair and he didn't get it back before he closed up.

Anyway, here is the cabinet :

As you can see, its a Zaccaria Quasar Cabaret. And from the research I've done on the internet there only seems to be one more floating around between arcade collectors in the UK. Pretty amazing that I now have one in my little stored up collection.

You can see in the photos that its had a little bit of a rough life by the scratches down the right hand side but I think with a little cleaning up they wont look half as bad, and a general wash down will do it a world of good! Its got years and years of storage based dirt and grime on it.

I'm going to keep my eye out on the Jamma plus forums for a chassis for the cabinet and see if I can get it up and running. Its missing the control panel artwork but the rear Quasar artwork is in pretty good shape. I'd love to get it back up and running.

The cabinet details are really nice too. The drilled out Z shape lower down on the front panel underneath the coin door.

Im going to post up some images on Jamma Plus and see if I can find out anymore information on this little cabinet. And see if I can source a monitor or monitor chassis for a decent price and get it back up and running and all cleaned up over summer.

And next month....REVIVAL : THE RIVALS!! Whoop! I can't wait. Im really looking forward to this event. All of them have been great fun, especially last years Summer Solstice. Hopefully there will be a Retro Asylum Forum meet up on the day I go. I'd love to meet up and have some high score sessions etc with the peeps on there.

Anway, hopefully I will be a bit more up to date with my blog and bar top progess etc.